Stark radio deal to cost at least $200k more a year for four years

Wednesday

Jul 11, 2018 at 7:25 PMJul 12, 2018 at 11:13 PM

The board finalized its agreement with the state on connecting its radio towers to the state's Multi-Agency Radio Communications System.

CANTON Stark County commissioners have approved an agreement with the state to connect its radio system to its Multi-Agency Radio Communications System or MARCS and it's going to cost more than projected.

The deal went through twists and turns before the parties could finalize the terms, said Stark County Administrator Brant Luther.

Commissioners will end up paying $200,000 to $250,000 more per year than anticipated for the first four years of the agreement, he said. The alternative, he added, could have put agreements with cities, townships and villages to connect to the countywide and statewide network at risk.

The county is scheduled to begin use of its new, upgraded radio network in January. The system allows sheriff's deputies, police officers, firefighters, paramedics and others to communicate with each other and dispatchers on one system. In the past, jurisdictions have used different radio systems, making it more difficult to coordinate efforts during a larger emergency.

In late 2016, commissioners and Stark County Sheriff George Maier decided to upgrade the county's radio system, which dated back to the 1990s. Motorola said the county's system was so obsolete, it would not be able to maintain it past 2018. By connecting to MARCS, a modernized system, it would allow county emergency responders to be connected with emergency responders around the state for instant communications. And MARCS would cover the cost of maintaining the system and radio towers.

In return for the county upgrading its radio equipment and towers on leased property and turning it over to the state's network, the state would issue a credit up to $5 million, or about half the cost to the county of upgrading its network, which would expire after 10 years. The credit would be applied against the network access fee that would be charged for each county-owned radio unit connected to the MARCS network, which after a state subsidy is about $10 a unit per month.

Negotiating

However, Luther said, based on what happened with another county, Stark County officials were led to believe they could apply the credit to radio units owned by other police and fire departments that are not part of Stark County's government.

As part of their campaign to encourage more local agencies to join in, county officials told city, township and village officials they would not have to cover the monthly access fee per unit the first few years.

Commissioners persuaded voters in May 2017 to extend the current 0.5 percent criminal-justice sales tax until 2028. Then in March, with the assurance of a revenue stream to repay the debt, they sold bonds to investors to raise about $10 million to finance upgrades to the county's radio system so it could be connected to MARCS.

Luther said in February officials with MARCS and the Ohio Department of Administrative Services told county officials they could not agree to the credit covering the access network charges for radio units not owned by the county. State officials said this would leave them without enough revenue to maintain the part of the radio network in Stark County MARCS was taking on.

Extra costs

The state asked the county to take on more of the cost, as much as $588,000 a year, Luther said.

After a lot of back and forth, the state and county reached a compromise. The county would still have the credit covering the network access charge for county-owned radio units such as those used by sheriff's deputies. But the county would for four years cover the entire subsidized cost of the network access charges for radio units owned by police departments, fire departments and ambulance units in Stark County that are not owned by the county. That translates into $200,000 to $250,000 a year the first four years of the agreement.

Luther said the commissioners felt they could not go back to the cities, townships and villages and tell them the terms of their enrollment had changed. Several could have backed out, and a system with fewer participants would be less effective.

Luther said just about every police and fire department for communities with a population of more than 10,000 has agreed to join.

"Trust was important," Luther wrote in a text message. "At the end of the day, we appreciate and value our partnership with MARCS to provide a safer radio system for all Stark Countians."